Our Real Life in Christ
Experiencing the Life and Quality of Faith Provided by Jesus Christ to Overcome Any Obstacle in Our Lives
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Another fact you must also understand is that the narrative of the Bible is primarily and exclusively focused on God's account and evaluation about events and choices made by His second (Adamic) creation and all of those who were his descendants who unlike the first creation, were unique since He granted us the privilege of possessing and exercising our own free will. This new creation had the opportunity to make an independent choice as to whether to belong in God's family, or to reject Him as God and Father, which is exactly what Adam and Eve, did. If God did not wish for us to have this self-rule, then He could have just as easily created another earth in another part of this universe without the presence of evil, and place there His newly created masterpiece named Adam and Eve. But, since it was God's will for us to have freedom of choice, then the obvious question is this: How could Adam exercise this free will privilege in a world where evil is non-existent? Just imagine if I lived in an island and forbade my children to eat any coconuts, but then I proceed to chop down every coconut tree in the island, so that they don't have any access to them! How on earth will I ever test and know if those children are obedient to my counsels? God's desire for a relationship in Love and Fairness of necessity, excludes a bond that has a nature of that of a Master and servant-slave affiliation because that would not be a relationship based on love. Why else would Jesus come in the role of a Servant rather than as the Conqueror King the Jews envisioned, and the One who would come to make them the Master Race so they could lord it over to the rest of the gentile swine? But no, He came as His Offspring to show Love, Mercy, and Grace because that is exactly the only type of love-relationship that He desires to have with us and therefore, if we desire to have the same thing with Him, then we must respond to Him with a love borne out of our own free will, as in the same way we would gladly and happily respond to an earthly parent. Why do you think Satan's top priority has always been directed to the destruction of the family as ordained by God? Having been in a prison ministry, I can tell you that most of those ruined lives I saw there came from homes without a father in them! Myself I was raised in a fatherless home and I can testify to you that lacking an example of a loving father at home, I had a horrible time trying to be a father myself and only by the Grace of God and hanging on for dear life to His Promise in Proverbs 22:6: "Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it," I was able to muddle through it after He provided me with three absolutely marvelous daughters despite the horrible mistakes I made as a clueless dad. But back to our point, how can then mankind make a choice between Good and evil if only Good is present? But since Satan, an avowed enemy of His was cast out of heaven and already on this earth as implied in Genesis 1:2, God chose the restored earth of Genesis 1:3 as the ideal place for His creature to exercise his freedom since a love relationship requires a free will choice. Therefore by placing His new creation in the Garden of Eden rather than creating a new earth someplace else, provided the perfect environment as a testing ground for exercising our free will, that would not be available anywhere else but here. Is this making any sense to you now? This earth was the only perfect setting in order to test our self-rule where His new creation could unreservedly exercise their full independence from Him because we know that His Nature is not capable of tempting His creation as we are told in James 1:13: "Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one." In conclusion, this method of inference and deduction to find answers and resolutions to ambiguous questions can be found by comparing different passages of the Bible with one another as you read the many events that are narrated in it, and sometimes they even clarify certain obscured events where the Word does not give us exact answers or details. Sometime these particulars may be just small windows, but they allow you to see a small part of the whole that can later be explained and revealed to you by the Holy Spirit, and the story of this Blood Covenant with Abraham is certainly one of these events that do. The other component of this blood covenant is the expression of the Love of God toward us in which, as a Father, He takes full responsibility of what happened at the Garden of Eden. He gives us in His Word brief observations of His Vision of when we will be living together with Him, as His third final and perfect Creation as personified in the resurrected body of our Savior as being a brand new creation (2 Corinthian 5:17, Galatians 6:15, and Colossians 3:11 and Revelation 1:5) through Christ Jesus, not as creatures created for the pleasure of the Creator, but as true Children of a Loving Father in His Family! And to give us a tiny glimpse, quality, and better understanding of this perception, He invented and gave us the human family consisting of a father, a mother, and children, duplicating just a infinitesimal portion of what is going to be like living with Him when we experience His Love in its fullness. He has given us this assurance to us his children, way back in Deuteronomy 7:9, where He assures us that we can "know, recognize and understand that the Lord our God is God, the faithful God who fulfills His covenant and steadfast love and mercy with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations." And in 1 John 4:16, we realize that: "And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the Love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. " I submit to you that in my finite mind, I cannot conceive the depth, height, and width of how splendid is His Love for us and still be able to thank the Father with all my heart for His great Faithfulness that He showed to that ancestor of mine who dwelled and continued his love for Him, because I certainly was not, nor deserve such splendid Love from Him. So, even if it was possible, our human love couldn't possibly reach even an infinitesimal fraction of His for us, if we were even able to compare our capacity to love to that of His. Haven't we experienced and expressed love to someone during our lifetime? Then how much more can God, its Author, would convey to us His infinite Love with a quality that is far beyond the grasp of our understanding? Now, does this mean that God has a hunger or need for our love? No! To the contrary He, not as the Creator, but as a Father chose us to be the object of his Love and His deepest desire is: [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!"(Ephesians 3:19.) The best way to perceive why this ideal has to be out of our free will is to imagine that if you had children or anyone else whom you might deeply love; what pleasure would you experience from it, if it was just one-sided? Now, let's say that this is the case and that you accept this status quo, but then let's say you wish to experience the affection and love from the object of your devotion but since the relationship is only coming from your end, how can you then have that experience?
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It’s essential to uncover the current malady affecting the organized Christian Church today, not its structuring and not necessarily its organizational approach, but present to it His solution, which has never been hidden or even veiled in His Word, which is that we must return to the true roots of Christianity, which is founded on the individual discipleship of each member of His body, just as Jesus designed it and modeled it for us while He ministered on this earth. It passed the acid test of resiliency when it was mercilessly persecuted, as its disciples applied the principles as instituted and instructed by our Lord for all of us to display and to do. I encourage anyone to do a Bible search for the word “disciple” and “believer” and see firsthand that these words are not interchangeable or used in the same context when referring to a specific person who’s known to be committed to our Lord, versus referring to a generalization in the third person to someone or a group who’s aware about the existence of the real living God. God’s remedy it’s still available today to anyone who truly desires to attain it and can decipher that it’s only through discipleship that a true believer is infected with the enthusiasm, zeal, and eagerness in the commitment to fulfill John 8:31 and Matthew 28:19, reaching to those around them who thirst and hunger for the things of God, and in that process, experience the life He promises we can live now. It’s time to abandon, once and for all, the current practices of mass-producing “supporters,” and inscribe it into our minds that the Great Commission was not to make believers but to make disciples. The early church didn't churn out cheerleaders and advocates but bona fide disciples, taught and equipped according to Ephesians 6:10–17, who then, as members of the body of Christ, led by example, transforming them into a formidable, most powerful and effective force the Roman Empire had ever seen. Again, I want to reiterate that I am not against the church, as organized by the apostles, but want to revolutionize it, where discipleship is the top priority and purpose for its existence. I am critical of the current organized version that has taken the place of the real church, that nowadays is wasting vast resources and investing them in huge entertainment amphitheaters, and often dilute, distort, and obscure the true message and method to attain this new life established by our Lord. Unless this change happens, we can’t truly reach and change a lost world. Our Real Life in Christ seeks to help those who are experiencing that gnawing sensation that there is much more to God’s Word than what is being offered by those weekly sermons in churches today.
About the Author
M. Alberto Zelaya Aragon was born and raised in Central America, and saw firsthand the indomitable faith of his mother, who raised fourteen successful children against all odds. Now retired, he lives with his wife near Phoenix and has a blended family of five daughters and a son living in various states, as well as a large extended family in California and in his homeland.